Now, let's find middle ground

What they have said is that we are still a deeply divided nation. After more than a year of campaign battles and rhetoric, where total spending on federal elections this cycle reached a jaw-dropping record $6 billion, America is back to square one.

President Barack Obama will return to the White House for four more years. Power in the two houses of Congress remains split between the Democrats and Republicans. And unless and until leaders in both parties decide that compromise is not a four-letter word, and passionate Americans of every political stripe recognize that it is better sometimes to get a half a loaf than no loaf at all, this country could be in for another four years like the gridlocked last four years.

This is not some illusory divide fomented by cable news outlets. In June, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a study with hard data revealing the extent of the divisions. The split is as deep as it has been since Pew started tracking what it calls the "values gap" between Democrats and Republicans in 1987. And the widening gap has accelerated in the past decade.

Yet there is a whole host of issues that won't wait for preening party politicians to make their ideological points instead of doing what we elected them to do: govern. How long can we allow ideologues to stymie progress on the impending fiscal cliff? Immigration reform was barely mentioned this campaign out of some political calculus. Time and again progress has ceased when it comes to achieving long-term deficit reduction and putting Social Security and Medicare on solid footing.

In Obama's first two years as president, some major initiatives were achieved, including the beginnings of health care reform, the stimulus package and the auto industry bailout.

Over the last two years, however, things have screeched to a standstill in Washington as a more uncompromising wing of the Republican Party emerged in the House of Representatives and rejected measures passed by the Democratic Senate and pushed by the White House.

We can only hope that Tuesday night's results convince some on the right in Congress that, much as they may dislike Obama and his policies, at least half of America is with him. And we hope Obama fully realizes that his mandate is paper-thin and that if he wants to accomplish anything over the next four years, he has to be more willing to compromise on major points.

In New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the Democratic Legislature have proven that compromise delivers real results. Property tax legislation, reforms to our state's pension and health care benefits for public workers, and changes to teacher tenure all came from bipartisanship.

It's strange holding up New Jersey government as a model for anything, but if Washington took a page from how Republican and Democratic leaders have worked together here over the past three years, our nation would be far better off.

Our Founding Fathers certainly envisioned divided government in America, as one more of the checks and balances that has made us a beacon of liberty and progress. But we have to believe that even they would be sorry to see how dysfunctional things are today in Washington. It has to change.

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Now, let's find middle ground

The people have spoken, more or less. What they have said is that we are still a deeply divided nation.

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